I am black. My hair is versatile—but, I’m not my hair!

The feeling is that you can’t change your hair as much as you may like to because you risk getting the awkward questions at the office. No, I don’t want to stand here for 6 minutes describing how I get my hair to do that. Or, seeing you try and hide your surprise at why and how my hair grew 16 inches overnight. Or, have you ask to touch it and have me politely decline. At times it feels like being on display at an exhibit… Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with complimenting anyone’s hair or inquiring about where they got it done and etc. But the issues arise when a complete breakdown and explanation is expected or even requested about said hair.

So in order to avoid such instances you maintain consistency in your hairstyle choices. Same hair color and texture families. My personal experience has been receiving unfavourable treatment when my hair looked like Zendaya’s on the red carpet that one time. I noticed discomfort from some of my peers. Versus when I’ve had long flowy hair, for example, and it was smiles all around.

It would just be nice to not even have the need to write a post about hair but this is reality and i really want to try something different with my hair. lol. My point is, as a black woman in the corporate world, I should not have to prepare myself for the questions and remarks at the office anytime I change my hair too “drastically” or too foreign of a hair texture. That being said, kudos to those that don’t allow such occurences to deter them from expressing their right to wear their hair however they please, whenever they please. I’ll soon be joining you in your boldness, this post is just the beginning.